Monday, August 20, 2007

I ask because, reportedly, the Feds are set to create a "superseding" set of charges, including racketeering. That's the charge that serves as code to the NFL (and everyone else) of GAMBLING.

("Superseding" means that the new indictment takes over for the other one, and it means things get MUCH worse for Vick: Tougher plea bargain, longer jail time, the works.) It could happen as early as today.

Meanwhile, the judge wants to remind everyone that while Vick can negotiate a specific jail sentence, the judge isn't bound by that. He can (and should) use it as a guideline, but he has the discretion to do whatever he wants, in the event of a guilty plea (or verdict). Wouldn't that be crazy if Vick negotiated a 12-month sentence and the judge boosted it to, say, 48? It's not like it matters: By all accounts, Vick has seen his last game as an NFL player.

UPDATE: Jason from East Coast Bias actually talked with the local county prosecutor Poindexter, who rejected rumors that Vick's plea deal with the Feds will include dropping state charges. Poindexter, apparently, wants his own bite, too. (Kudos to Jason: Sports bloggers doing first-hand reporting... and investigative reporting, no less! A credit to all of us!)

MLB Stud: Johan Santana, who struck out 17 in a 2-hit, 8-inning masterpiece on Sunday. He might not win the AL Cy Young award this year, but it was a reminder who the best pitcher in baseball is.

CFB: AP Top 25 announced over the weekend, and unsurprisingly, USC is No. 1. Let's kick off our two weeks of college football preview coverage with this question: What did you think of the opening AP Top 25? Who is overrated and who is underrated? Which unranked team is most likely to surge into the top half of the polls by the end of the season? I'm so excited about the start of college football season.

NBA Scandal Watch: While it doesn't look like any other refs were involved in anything criminal, all signs point to more refs being involved in inappropriate behavior related to gambling. One official mentioned "football pools," which are benign enough in the abstract, but the league's prohibitions against refs getting involved in ANY type of gambling are there for a reason.

MLB Pennant Races: The Yankees are 4 GB the Red Sox in the AL East, but still .5 GB the Mariners for the Wild Card.

(I wonder if that rain-cancelled Cubs-Cards game will come back at the end of the season with huge playoff implications?)

Colts-Bears tonight: Please don't call it a Super Bowl rematch, except for the handful of plays where both teams' starters will be on the field facing each other. And, even then, it's a stretch...

NFL Weekend Review: Two words: Brady Quinn. Tough weekend for the Quinn-haters, because he came off the bench to win back Browns fans and amp up the pressure to get him in the lineup ASAP.

NFL Fantasy Watch: So what were the biggest revelations of the weekend, as they relate to fantasy drafts being held this week? Was it Quinn? I'd nominate the Travis Henry injury, which just affirms that you take ANY Broncos RB at your own risk. Looks like Brandon Jackson is going to be the Packers starting RB...hmm... Any others?

Have you signed up for any/all of the football-prediction leagues that I created? Check out the links on the right: Two for the NFL and two for college football. It's going to be a ton of fun. Sign up today!

NBA: Ron Artest to the Heat? That would continue the East's surge and effectively kill the mo that Boston has been enjoying. Start with this: Wade, Shaq and Artest is a better "Big Three" than Garnett, Pierce and Allen. (And, like the Bulls and Rodman in the late-90s, I think Wade and Shaq could keep Artest in check.)

Just because I'm always impressed by superlatives: "High School Musical 2" was the most-watched cable show ever. Wow. Take that, MNF. (Perhaps Jaworski and Kornheiser should sing their analysis?)

54 comments:

Here is an easy one for unranked team that will rise up in the Polls, Notre Dame if they win there 1st 2 games they will be in the top 15-20 but they will finish the season unranked and at some crappy bowl if they are lucky.

Also Watch out for BC, hopefully they have a coach that will not choke when it comes to big games like O'Brien did.

Ok, let's not overrated what Quinn did over the weekend. It was the 4th Quarter and was against probably players who will either barely make the roster or not even be in the NFL in a week. Let him play against the a 1st string NFL defense before we make him out to be the next great NFL QB.

CM--i would agree but he was playing with 4th string offense as well, and not to mention Cleveland 3rdc and 4th QBs (dorsey and Quinn) now have 3 TD passes while Frye and Anderson (1st and 2nd) have a combined 0 in 2 games played (around 8-10 series played)

not to mention quinn played 2 series scored 2x and led the browns from something like the 8 yard line in 1 50 to score another td.

this weekend the browns play denver, and BQ deserves to start to see how he plays aginst 2 great corners and a good defenses in general. not to mention the 1st offense.

it just seems that RC is too stubborn to play the kid. he keeps saying he isnt ready (holdout) which is bullshit. get him in and lets see what he can do

I don't think Quinn is being overrated now. I think he has just taken so much shit for his holdout, his being a Notre Dame QB and just being a tool, that it's only fair we give him some credit for his first performance in the NFL.

The one thing I hate about these preseason polls is that if your behind at the start it is nearly impossible to catch up. case in point, Auburn a few years ago - they were unranked at the beginning of the season, go undefeated in the SEC (!) and get shafted because an Oklahoma team was near the top all season long . I know these polls do get people talking about cfb early, but it seems the press has too much power in shaping the landscape of cfb. some possible suggestions:1) carry the last poll over to the start of the season and then let everything play out2) do something similar to the BCS and don't put out a poll until 4 weeks into the season. it's not like the networks can't figure out what the big games are each weekend.

I'm an SC fan and a total homer, but I agree that the preseason polls put the higher ranked teams in an undeserving position where underperformance or losses won't hurt as much as they probably should.

I'd like to see the polls wait for 2-4 weeks after play begins. Its the one part of the BCS rankings system I like. The computer geeks know you can't build reliable data from 1 or 2 weeks of data. How do the humans think they're that much better.

Anyhow, I really want to see USC and LSU run their tables and put both the 2007 title and the 2003 bragging rights to the test.

For sports trivia geeks, and people interested in seeing big records broken (I include myself in that), the best story coming out of the weekend has to be Brandon Webb's scoreless innings streak, which is now at 42. Two more shutouts to beat Hersheiser! Obviously still improbable, but his next start will definitely be worth watching...

I'm definitely not one of the Cleveland kooks thinking Brady Quinn should be the Browns' starting QB, but he sure deserves a chance to go against a 2nd string defense at the least. Frye and Anderson did absolutely nothing to impress me. Dorsey even deserves some 1st and 2nd string reps too.

It's going to be the same ole, same ole here if things don't get tweaked. Does anyone else feel that it may be more Romeo Crennel than the players and/or assistants?

I cannot wait for Quinn to play in the first half of the next preseason game, the jury is still out, and the defense is going to be faster then the scrubs he played agaiasnt the other night. His stats from the other night, are exactly what he built his ND career on, blowing out weaker competition only to blow his load in a meaningful game

Unlikely the Yankees if the season ended today the Red Sox would be in the playoffs. So unless the Yankees catch and pass the Sox I will not worry about it. We still have a 4 game lead and any lead is better then being behind.

Man in college I would drink anything. Schaeffer's, PBR, mickey's hand grenades, Cisco, Mad Dog. Hell I even tried to make some buck in my organic chemistry class. Then again that was when you could still leave football games at halftime and get beer at the porpoise before going back to the game. I wonder if UF's party school rankings will start rising again with our recent success in sports.

As for LSU UF as a quasi-natl championship game, yeah right. The problem is this: The O is good but you wonder when the rest of the SEC will figure out how to stop the O. With Tebow taking the reigns fulltime he mike rise to the occasion or struggle. The D is a huge unknown. Urban hasn't lost in the Swampbut with UT, Aub, and FSU at home it might be tough this year. 1 or 2 losses are a real possibility . At least they are better than the Bucs who might win 7 games if they are lucky. It may shape up to be a depressing fall.

Dating myself here: My friends and I bought out the entire package store when Lite Ice came out.

As for USC, I lived in L.A. in the early 90's and loved the campus, the team, the Coliseum, everything about SC football and baseball. My friend's give me grief saying I am bandwagon. Yup, bandwagon alright, since the early 90's.

I would thoroughly enjoy a SC / LSU title game. They should have played in 03 when OU couldn't even win their title game. That was a bad BCS year.

I miss college too. I just had two friends call me from Chicago Friday night after they were reminiscing about playing the drinking game Shoulders with me for hours. I hadn't talked to them in a looong time. It was great.

I knew this dude from ontario who went to UF and UCF with me. I went out partying with him and a bunch of his canuck friends and they liked to sit in the parking lot during the nice winter months and cook pounds of bacon over a grill. Then they would eat the bacon and do boilermakers with syrup on top. That is even worse than eating sushi for four hours then hitting a kegger.

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DanShanoff.com is a sports-blog spin-off of my long-time ESPN.com column, "The Daily Quickie." Anchored by an early-morning post of must-know topics, the blog is updated frequently throughout the day with new posts and user comments.